LogFAQs > #896438167

Nomak-54 posted...

@Garlands_Soul posted...

Rutherford B. Hayes are my faves.

Could I ask why? People always say he was among the worst

It basically comes down to him getting our troops out of the South since only further damage could've been done and further division if reconstruction continued (although lots of damage HAD been done), and restoring some faith in politics in the 19th century (before it went to shit again). He's also got the distinction of being the first president to graduate law school.

He was also the first president since Lincoln that wasn't outwardly awful at the time since his predecessors had a lot of scandals and poor decisions under their belt. In specifics, Johnson was notable for vetoing everything, starting the flawed reconstruction, and making pretty much no ground whatsoever. Grant wasn't great either, and he got a lot of flack for hiring corrupt people and just dragging reconstruction along.

Finally, in the line of progression, he instated a law that women could argue to the supreme Court about things, another stride in women's rights.

For the criticisms against him, the big one is that reconstruction's end beckoned the beginning of the Jim Crow period of history, but I fault that on reconstructionist policies to begin with. Johnson put a lot in place just to punish the south, and making African Americans the scape goat for that was inevitable for the time. The other major hate for Hayes was out of his control, too. People don't like that he won since he honestly shouldn't have. He lost by a margin of 200,000-ish votes but a recount was called due to voter fraud in a select few states. They all gave their electoral votes to Hayes.
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"I, Garland, will knock you all down!"